I've been gone a while but the UK music mainstream really seems to be going through a long shitty beige phase, maybe reflecting it's country's politics as opposed to reacting against them ala 1976, 1979 and 1981? tut tut. And it's unlikely any movement - as in the past - is gonna come along and kick over the uninspiring sandcastle and rid us of some of these guff acts or pull the plug on what still seems to be X factor omnipotence.
There's no summer of '76 punk reset in the wind, no 2 Tone, no Jam, no colourful new romanticsm, hardly any provincial city based scenes coming through ala Glasgow, Manchester and so forth - something to at least maybe shake up the scene and lay waste or lay claim. Are we really at - What are we going to do now it's all been said? No new ideas in the house, and every book's been read? Britpop was the closest thing but became a tired brand towards the end, god it was almost endorsed by the government as opposed to feared by it and it was the artists on the fringe who'd been around before (Pulp/Jarvis, Weller) and who remained after it had fizzled out which were always the most interesting (in my book) and not the feuding 'big two'. Like punk it spawned and gave a platform to more interesting acts - eg. the Sex Pistols led to PIL, Pablo Honey led to The Bends >>.
I guess we're stuck with sad Sam singing with his eyes closed on winding, windy moors and the ubiquitious twit with his drum machine, bad raps, woeful lyrics (worse than a buttered refujesus on toast) and banjo singing about his "daddy" and his "angels" for the foreseable future until we run out of - + = signs for album titles.